BARRISTERS have been warned that if they do not stop stealing books from the Law Library they will have to pay increased membership fees.

About 1,239 items have gone missing, including one volume worth €333 that turned up in a second-hand bookshop in Limerick with its Law Library stamp removed.

It is not clear whether light-fingered lawyers are entirely to blame. Whole chapters have been hacked out of some textbooks, suggesting that another motivation for some bent barristers is to sabotage rivals by denying them vital information in complex cases.

Hugh Mohan, chairman of the Bar Council, has warned that the systematic sacking of the law library cannot continue. He has written to the country’s 1,500 barristers warning them that an embezzlement levy will be introduced if the theft and damage do not stop.

“If the abuse continues, offending members will leave us with no option but to recover the cost of replacing depleted stock when possible through an increase in membership fees,” Mohan wrote.

Counsel pay as much as €8,000 in annual fees for use of the library and related facilities.

Mohan was alerted to the problem earlier this year by library staff. Among the items found to be damaged was a €320 textbook, Civil Procedure in the Superior Courts by barristers Hilary Delaney and Declan McGrath. Chapter 10, comprising 35 pages on the security for costs, had been removed with a blade.

Also missing was the entire contents list, apart from the index, of a looseleaf and CD-Rom package on district court rules, worth €425. There are eight copies missing of a €150 text on judicial review by Mark de Blacam, a senior counsel.

Statutes and bound volumes of road traffic and parking regulations have also been removed. Some are being stolen for profit. One barrister browsing in a shop in Limerick came across a library copy of Criminal Procedure written by Professor Dermot Walsh, chairman of the local school of law, which is worth €333 new.

Laptops and cheques are also removed from the library, despite a €1.25m security upgrade last year. There are concerns that professional thieves, posing as barristers, may be breaching security checks.

“There is a great deal of sophistication involved,” said one barrister. “Removing or damaging books can only be lawyers, but it is quite extraordinary that items such as cheques and laptops are missing too. That suggests something more sinister at play.”

Five years ago a man dressed up as a barrister and stole chequebooks from desks in the law library. He was jailed for 11 months. Keith Lueders stole a wig and gown from the west wing of the Four Courts, put them on and walked past security men on the door of the Law Library. He was caught after trying to buy a senior counsel’s garb at Louis Copeland, the Dublin tailor.

Copeland says that in the past 12 months alone there has been a noticeable increase in barristers seeking replacement gowns because they have been stolen. “It is mostly young barristers,” said Copeland, who reports suspicious haberdashery requests to the Bar Council.

Dublin’s barristers are not the only legal victims. Last year a junior barrister in Belfast threatened to file a complaint with the Police Service of Northern Ireland after her wig and gown were stolen from the new law library in the city. Scores of wigs, gowns and other personal effects have been stolen from the £10m (€14.6m) facility.

Lawyers pay up to £7,000 a year for use of the library and are not indemnified for property that is lost or stolen on the premises.

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